What induces a man to retrieve old cat litter from the garbage and then wander outside under a darkening sky in his bare feet to stuff the mix in a hole in the ground? Garden rage, my friends. Plain and simple. Allow me to back up. When my wife and I returned to New Hampshire […]
new hampshire
Main Dishes
New England by the Numbers | Stats
8 the late Red Auerbach’s ranking in CIGAR AFICIONADO’s list of “The Top 100 Cigar Smokers of the Twentieth Century.” The cigar of choice for the legendary Boston Celtics coach: Hoyo de Monterrey. Winston Churchill ranked number 1; JFK and Fidel Castro, 2 and 3, respectively. 62,336 major league baseball games analyzed by Northeastern University […]
Magazine
Mary’s Farm: Moose Lottery
I have always been ambivalent on the subject of hunting. I understand the arguments but love our friends in the wild. A trip to New Jersey, which inevitably includes the sight of deer carcasses scattered along the roadside like so much litter, can help along the arguments not only for thinning the herd, but also […]
Magazine
A Road Less Traveled
My editor and a longtime travel writer, Mel Allen, often hands out the sagely advice to “get lost, but carry a good map.” Sometimes this works better in theory than in practice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely good advice for people in our line of work. Good travel writing takes readers to places they’ve […]
Gardens
Farmers’ Markets
There’s something special about purchasing the food that nourishes and sustains our bodies and souls directly from the growers who have carefully coaxed it from the earth. Every person who works closely with the earth invests not only their own time and energy but also a bit of themselves into what they grow—somehow making the […]
What does it take to make perfect Maine lobster rolls? Here’s the criteria and the places that serve some of the best rolls in the state. I don’t consider myself a foodie, but whenever I end up in Maine, I’m constantly in search of the seafood shack that serves up the best lobster roll. So […]
Though one could easily describe the handcrafted children’s clothing Mary-Alice Dalton produces as art , she’d prefer not to think of it that way. “My work is meant to be worn every day, by an active child, and I design and construct every piece with that in mind,” says the founder of Belmont, New Hampshire-based […]
New Hampshire
Call of the Wild: Loons
The haunting cry of the common loon is vanishing from many New England waters. Whether we hear it much longer depends on us.
A typical workday for Tracie Smith, an organic-vegetable farmer in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, is a long one. Weeding, harvesting, planting–on midsummer days she’ll be on the move for as many as 16 hours to meet the demands of her 300-member CSA (community-supported agriculture) business. Except at lunch. That’s when Tracie and her small staff sit […]
I’m writing this on a sun-splashed (finally!) afternoon, after so many days of cold rain it seemed as if all of New England had collectively willed the heat away after the temperature peaked near 100 only a week ago. It seems that we do have that power sometimes: thousands of people all praying silently (or […]
Magazine
My Worst Hike Ever
Climbing Mount Sunapee in early June was not my best plan ever. I was in the area this week doing research for a travel story. Yankee Publishing was recently awarded the contract to produce the New Hampshire Tourism department’s annual travel guide for 2012, so this week it was my job to familiarize myself with […]
Magazine
New England’s Avian Superhighway
The Connecticut River links four of New England’s six states along its 410 miles, starting at the northern tip of the New Hampshire/Maine border, from where it flows south between New Hampshire and Vermont, through Massachusetts and Connecticut, finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Long Island Sound. Like Interstate 91, its companion for much of […]